At 36, Daniel Cormier has fought through adversities and has so far been successful. But at some point, something has got to give and apparently his troublesome knees now have to be attended, too.
It turns out that Daniel Cormier has been technically competing on one knee and now he has to pay the price and undergo stem cell treatment to fix his ACL.
Cormier has fought through the years with bad knees but his last triumph against Anthony Johnson may have been too much. Cormier was somehow able to win the title previously held by Jon Jones. Cormier won via submission over Johnson.
Jones was stripped of the title last April as a disciplinary action when the 27-year-old fighter had been linked to a felony charge in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jones has been suspended indefinitely.
Cormier made it clear that he doesn’t want to be sidelined for long and has shot down the possibility of undergoing surgery to repair his injured knee.
Instead, Cormier has agreed to take biological injections (platelet rich plasma – PRP) and stem cell – which should help bring down the swelling and pain on his creaky knees.
Cormier is confident that this manner of treatment would suffice, showing full confidence on his doctor who has had a good history of doing so in the past. He sees himself up and ready in time by October 3 where he will be defending his title against Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 192 in Houston.
At 36 years of age, Cormier has battled through knee problems throughout his UFC career.
He was forced to withdraw in UFC 173 against Dan Henderson and was supposed to undergo knee surgery last year. Like his current case, he opted for alternative treatment to avoid being on the mend but his last fight seemed to have worsened his condition.
Despite his confidence that the stem cell treatment would do, it is still a temporary solution to his knees. Adding that plus his age could translate into something worse if he is not careful.
PRP therapy has been around since mid-1990’s and is done though by withdrawing a portion of the patient’s blood. The blood is placed in a centrifuge to separate the platelet-rich plasma from it, which is then injected into the site of the injury, as explained by Mmaweekly.com.
Among the athletes who underwent the same treatment include Hines Ward and Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steeelers, golfer Tiger Woods and Major League Baseball pitchers Takashi Saito and Bartolo Colon.